1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to financial transactions and more particularly to facilitating mobile on-line financial transactions through an on-line payment provider.
2. Related Art
With the ever-increasing popularity of the Internet and of Internet commerce, both consumers and sellers are using the Internet to facilitate financial transactions between parties, whether they be individuals or companies. In on-line financial transactions, consumers may use third-party payment service providers to transfer money through electronic communications with others over electronic networks, such as the Internet. The money transfer may be for payment of goods or services or between family members and friends. The third-party payment providers provide an infra-structure, software, and services that enable users to make and receive payments. The payments may be credit card payments, electronic bank transfers, or other payment techniques offered by the third-party payment provider. One payment technique may be transferring money from an account held by the payment provider, as opposed to transferring credit from an outside credit card company or an outside financial institution or bank. Transferring money held in the payment provider account may be cheaper for a user because it avoids certain transaction fees or interest payments that may be incurred when transferring money or making a payment from an outside credit or banking institution.
When one user desires to transfer money to another user, there is typically a series of requests and confirmations, including entering personal identification numbers (PINs), that one or both users must perform. This ensures that money is not fraudulently or mistakenly transferred from one account or user to another. However, requiring users to go through such a series of actions may be cumbersome and time-consuming. This can be especially true with users that are performing the transactions via mobile devices due to factors such as smaller keypads, time delays, and less stability of the device when compared with desktop devices. With increased use and proliferation of mobile devices in Internet commerce, there is a need for a simple, yet secure, method to perform financial transactions between users using mobile and other computing devices.